Языки

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, reported yesterday that several international and Egyptian human rights activists, journalists and lawyers were picked up in a raid on the Hisham Mubarak Law Center in Cairo. The activists are currently detained at an unknown location in Egypt, and no news has been heard from them since their arrest. According to Bouckaert, the arrests are part of a clear campaign against independent eyewitnesses of the violence in Egypt, including journalists and civil society activists.” If you know more names tell @bouckap!#jan25http://is.gd/FS8kG2

The Law Center is a hub and meeting space for various human rights and civil society groups in Egypt and has been amazingly active since the protests began Jan. 25. On Thursday morning, a joint squad of police and military personnel in their respective uniformsraided the Center, interrogated all inside, and forcibly transported dozens of Egyptians and foreigners alike to an unknown detention facility.

Police and army personnel were heard ordering the activists up against the wall, started yelling at them, and then claimed they were there to protect them from the pro-regime thugs who were assembled and chanting just outside the doors and who harassed the activists as they were escorted from the building. “We could let you go out in the crowd and they will kill you or you can come with us,” the police and army personnel said, according to Human Rights Watch Washington DirectorTom Malinowski.

Following the on-site interrogations, the police and army personnel accused all the Egyptians working at the Law Center of being affiliated with Hamas and accused all the foreigners at the Center of being affiliated with Israeli intelligence service Mossad.